The river flowing, blue and clear, rippling to somewhere I can’t even see. A large, green patch of grass where flowers and plants flourished. Up high in the mountains, where the clouds were barely above me, a red-golden horizon slowly going down, and the white, shiny moon rising up. I sat down on the comfy, trimmed grass, looking up at the coral sky filled with fluffy clouds that would feel like cotton candy if I touched them. Across the river, I saw another land, way more bland and dark than this side. I pondered who lived there. I looked behind me and saw a small bump on the ground with a gray plaque on the side of it. It had people’s names on it. Here, my grandma’s.

I was 12 when I visited my grandma’s cemetery. My heart was boiling that she was gone. My inspiration, my guardian angel, my whole, had left me. I felt empty, blank, and without hope. Tears flowed down my face like droplets of rain on the window, hopeless and trickling down. Memories flowed through my head, clear as glass, about the thousands of things me and my grandma did together — going to the park, eating food together, going to see Grandpa at his cemetery, and singing for him. It all seemed so dreamy like everything was at peace.

Memories also flashed of her Alzheimer’s. I noticed that she would always forget people, though. She would always call my dad another name, my sister another, and my mom another.

As time went on, she slowly started forgetting where she was. I would ask her to go to the park, eat, or go out, and she would respond with, “Where is that?” I always remembered one thing while she was alive: Grandma never forgot my name.

Grandma was my hero. She escaped from bombs falling from the sky and bullets flashing inches away from her as she tried to escape her hometown, North Korea. Without her, I would not be in America; I would not be free, and I would not know what life was like outside of North Korea.

Sitting next to her grave, another memory flashed in my mind.

“Jayden. Listen closely, okay?” My mom stuttered her words as she tried to hide her tears.

“Grandma got into an accident,” she responded. I never saw my mom like that ever. The red nose, 

the watery eyes, the pain I could see that was in her heart. I will never forget that moment.

After that day, Grandma couldn’t walk. She was in a wheelchair, and her symptoms of forgetting things got worse. No more going to the park, going to eat, or going to sing for Grandpa. Seeing her like that, I was shattered into pieces. A hole had appeared in my heart.

When Grandma passed away a couple of years later, it was Christmas. I was at a shopping mall with my friends, and my phone rang.

“Jayden, Grandma’s gone.”

Those words faded away as I sat next to Grandma’s grave, and I heard my parents call me.

While sitting at the grave, seeing that gray plaque, seeing that land across the river, imagining her face in the sky, it was like she was everywhere. As I laid down on the grass, I saw a sunflower had bloomed right next to Grandma’s plaque. The same flower she gave me the last time I saw her. Memories.

Everything about Grandma’s grave was perfect. The setting and the things around her cemetery all produce an end product. Memories. That perfectly trimmed grass, the beautiful blue river, the birds singing in my ears, the golden red sunset, and the flowers dancing with the wind. All of these elements help flourish my mind with the memories I had with her, back to the times when everything was perfect in my life. When going to the park, and eating and singing to Grandpa was actually possible. I went back to my car, and as her grave slowly started to become smaller and smaller as my car moved toward the exit, I noticed something peculiar. The memories with Grandma didn’t get smaller. I remained big.

Now, as a 17-year-old, visiting Grandma’s grave was the single most thankful thing I did. Those memories never left me. It makes me feel like an eight-year-old again, holding hands with Grandma as we went wherever we wanted to. Thanks, Grandma, and thank you, Cemetery — you’ll always make me a kid, no matter what age.

The place where Grandma lies will never be forgotten.